Ethnic China Living Books
Since I started with the page more than 10 years ago I have been posting some book reviews and news. Now that information is going to be expanded with the small summaries that I make (sometimes) for myself after reading a book or an article, or some of the notes that I take after the readings. In some interesting books that I have not been able to read or of which I do not keep any notes, I may put the text provided by the publisher.
I think all readers will be able to distinguish when it is a personal opinion, when it is an excerpt from the work, and when it is material provided by the publisher.
I have organized the material in the following sections. If you think something is missing, please write to me at the address below.
– Art
– Buddhism
– Classics of Chinese culture
– Daoism or Taoism
– Ethnic groups
– Folklore
– Gender, women and matriarchy
– History
– Idiom and language
– Journeys and travels
– Literature and poetry
– Myths, tales and legends
– Novels
– Orientalisms. Novels set in China.
– Philosophy
– Qi Gong, taiji and health techniques.
– Religion
– Society
– Tibet
– Zoom on politics and current affairs
LAST POSTS ABOUT BOOKS ON CHINA
The book Hanzi for HSK 1-3 now available in Greek language
The book “Hanzi for HSK 1-3” now available in Greek language This April, the translation of my book Hanzi for HSK 1-3 has been published in the main digital bookstores in Greece. The Greek version of this book, from the pen of Stefanos Karampalis, has been one of...
Buddhist Monks in Medieval China
Buddhist Monks in Medieval China That is the subject of John Kieschnick's book. The book analyzes the contents of the three collections of biographies of monks that became famous in medieval China, through them he tries to give us first a characterization of the...
Manual of Taoist Architecture
Manual of Taoist Architecture There are some illustrated books that produce in the reader a contradictory feeling, because the images that explain what the text is about are sometimes accompanied by an exposition of ideas that is too superficial. Therefore the reader...
How the presence of goddesses paves the way for female power
How the presence of goddesses paved the way for female power One of the theses of my book Matriarchy in China: mothers, goddesses, queens and shamans (Madrid, 2011) was to assert that the presence of goddesses with prominent roles in a culture could signal the past or...
The Adventures of the Mad Monk Ji Gong
The Adventures of the Mad Monk Ji Gong The past few days I have been reading a novel about China's most famous rogue monk. About the Monk Ji Gong, better known for his fondness for wine and meat than for his religious merits. His kindness and continuous desire to help...
The Stories of Beijing of David Kidd
The Stories of Beijing of David Kidd This book narrates some events in the life of an aristocratic family during the years in which China ended its traditional history and became a communist country. The author arrived in Beijing as an English teacher two years...
The Spirits are drunk. Comparative approaches to Chinese religion
Paper, Jordan. The Spirits are drunk. Comparative approaches to Chinese religion. SUNY Press. 1995 This is a completely original book on the religions of China. Instead of following the repetitive mantra of the existence of three religions and describing them more or...
Cheng Naishan and the Shanghai aristocratic families
Cheng Naishan. The Blue House. Panda Books. 1989. "Cheng Naishan captivates readers with stories about the present lives of Shanghai capitalists, who have overcome 30 years of political vicissitudes, as well as the lives of their children." So begins the presentation...
The metamorphosis of communism in China
The metamorphosis of communism in China The Communist Party of China (CPC) will be 100 years old in 2021. Of these, more than two thirds have been in power since the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Its evolution has been far from straight, but...
Chinese characters
12 Chinese idioms related to the tiger
12 Chinese idioms related to the tiger With the arrival of the Year of the Tiger 2022, here are 12 set phrases (chengyu) related to the tiger, so that those who are getting familiar with the Chinese language can practice one each month. As a wolf, as a tiger 如狼似虎...
Ethnic groups
Sexual aspects of Gu venom
Gu illness resulted from a contamination by gu poison, which a recent analyst has characterized as “an alien evil spirit which entered [the] body and developed into worms or some similar animal that gnawed away at the intestines or genitalia.” This poison was thought...
Chinese culture
Zhang Yongzheng, the master of deluding reality
Zhang Yongzheng, the master of deluding reality Reality is an illusion, say Buddhist texts. And each of Zhang Yonggzheng's (Gansu, 1978) works plays with this concept to remind us again and again that there is no immutable reality but a fluid universe of forms that...